Author
Topic: Apocrypha Discordia (Read 6491 times)

There are persistent rumors and disagreements whispered most quietly in the halls of the gods. The best remaining records will agree, and all the gods have seen, Hera declares Eris to be her daughter. Those among the Olympians that have been around the longest, and have seen Eris lose her top a few times, wonder quietly to themselves, and to each other privately, and always with utmost caution, whether the rumor that she is in fact the daughter of dark Nyx, the titan who is the cold, deadly, and radiant night sky, could possibly be true.

I am but a privileged mortal, and so no sure source of the truth. If you have ear though I shall tell you a tale that even the gods may hesitate to utter.

'Tis said that Nyx was most upset by the doings of the gods and their little monkey pawns in the earliest days. They were so loud and obnoxious in the evenings when she displayed her greatness and even the most ferocious creatures felt compelled to their quiet, worshipful night sounds.

The then still newly crowned gods had their revelry and sport, ambrosia and dark wine, their hateful fire. These were bad enough, but far more obnoxious, and puzzling, were the noises that the pathetic human wretches far below Olympus made. Sounds that echoed out from against rough cave walls and from under even rougher furs stolen from other creatures in attempt to keep back from their own, all too thin, flesh her chilling breath. Nyx watched on and approached bit by bit ever closer, rapt by their strange and piercing cries and wondering about what these tiny mortal beings could possibly dare to do in her presence so often, and yet seemingly wish to so conceal from her.

Much was obscured from Nyx's sight by fur and shelter; though it must be said here that she was then quite blissfully unaware of how much more she was truly missing. Nyx's singular obsession in the earliest days had been with the sounds that the humans made in her presence. Rapturous and savage the sounds were. So unlike the sonic nocturnal emissions of all the other creatures they were.

Where most creatures crawling upon the dirt produced a song and began the rituals of survival, and procreation, and rest under forever present stars humanity hid themselves from her splendor. They made not mere music but a riot of sounds so like the revels of the distant gods and yet somehow more. More desperate and savage and needful and so very warm against the unending chill that Nyx was accustomed to. Theirs was a riotous and obnoxious, but so very compelling, symphony that followed it's own rythym and respected no seasons.

Often Nyx believed that perhaps some humans had died after emitting particularly terrible cries only to see faintest movement as her train receeded into the west as she often turned to allow some few of her luminous eyes to linger for one final glimpse. Though it often so happened, often enough to keep ageless and enigmatic Nyx wondering, that one or both stirred no more after she passed.

Nyx pitied or was apathetic toward the humans in every concern other than the mystery of their hidden doings in her presence. Often she would hear word of their deeds during the sport of grand Helios, he who is the riotous day. Her all too brief conversations with him in passing for an age's worth of ages were one of the few things that Nyx could be said to truly enjoy and cherish in any sense that a mortal might fathom. Other than an occasional, and most amusing, scornful eye when his glory proved too powerful for the fragile little wretches, and caused a retreat to their caves and pathetic wooden shelters, he seemed clearly better regarded by them than she.

Yet still their mysterious cries continued unceasingly in her presence.

And so Nyx continued to listen, ever more fervently and closely, to the riot and rythyms of it allas many ages passed into aeons.

This went on, and was the way of things until, as is ever more certain thaneven immortals might prefer, things changed.

Logged

You can't get out backward. You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting. If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation." - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

The gods had long ago won their place on Mount Olympus in a terrible war against the Titans known as the Titanomachy, finally banishing all but the most powerful, gargantuan, and remote, such as Nyx and Helios, to fetid imprisonment in Tartarus. Indeed those struggles had borne the upstart gods considerable fruit. They had no desire to share this fruit with lowly humanity.

Zeus, upon taking the throne as mighty king of the gods, had outright forbidden any interaction between gods and mortal men that was not one of abject reverence. He saw fit to declare that humanity's place was to be forever beneath the gods of Olympus. Few of the Olympians had a care about this. No god was fool enough to say otherwise.

It was only the insightful and treacherous titan Prometheus that looked upon humanity and saw a use; as he did when he looked upon all things.He had betrayed the other titans from the outset of the war and proven more than once a turning point in that ancient struggle. He had forseen victory for Zeus and his upstart siblings.

In joining the young gods and their campaign Prometheus had sought both to survive the war in freedom and to mitigate the limitless destruction the war would otherwise surely cause to the world and it's inhabitants. He was fond of these things as he had been instrumental in helping to form them from ancient Chaos. He was especially fond of humanity. He alone understood their minds and had granted them much of his own vaunted foresight, mostly to see what would come of it.

The thin hope that had swayed Prometheus was that Zeus would rule more justly than had his father, fell Kronos, the son of Uranus, a usurper who had taken his own father's genitalia, and thereby throne, by force. It was Zeus' fated right to depose Kronos for that crime and also for consuming Zeus' many siblings in rightful fear of this very fate likewise befalling him. Zeus had been quite full of assurances while there was need. Prometheus had not much choice but to believe Zeus and attempt to guide the mighty, ambitious, and reckless young godling. Zeus was often quite heedless of Prometheus' advice and instruction, to the ancient titan's constant irritation.

In the aftermath, as reward for the innumerable contributions and unrecoverable sacrifices he had made during the war, Prometheus had been granted a minor estate upon the lower slopes of Olympus. His place among these fledgling gods, for all time, was to be next to the billowing smoke stacks of the forges that Hephastus and Athena tirelessly worked to produce for the gods their many wonders. It was the least desireable estate upon all of Olympus, and a clear insult. It must be said that even more than the Olympians the Titans are selfish and vengeful beings. Prometheus was also thoughtful, patient, and treacherous.

And so Prometheus watched on even as humanity was being watched ever more closely by his distant aunt Nyx. As Nyx's obsession grew and humanity struggled and strove on for survival Prometheus foresaw that if nothing changed Nyx would overtake frail humanity and in her full embrace they would perish and Prometheus have nothing left of his most interesting experiment, and no notable status upon Olympus,forever.

And thus Prometheus patiently waited, and watched, and plotted, and took action, as he had done by his immortal nature,since the beginning all known things, and found the means to bring a change

And so in his irreversible actions Prometheus would save humanity

And so in his lust for due vengeancePrometheus foresaw not the true costAnd nearly brought an end to the world

Logged

You can't get out backward. You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting. If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation." - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

It all seemed so terribly far in the past now to Zeus, the almighty king of the gods. That daft old coot Prometheus had defied Zeus' commands, stolen from his house, and worse disproven Zeus' claims of omniscience before the other gods, if not ignorant and wretched humanity. Zeus had grudgingly left his revelry and reasserted his authority swiftly and terribly after Prometheus had stolen the fire from his hall, while mighty Zeus slept, and then, damnably, given it to the smelly beasts below Olympus.

In what was to the immortals but a few moments humanity had taken this forbidden gift and with it's powers had spread to all corners of the world and had begun to cling together and yammer and rut in it's warm light. Worse, even as Zeus sought to ensure that humans would use it to make sacrifices that would honor the gods with a portion of all their best produce, and so happen to slow their growth, Prometheus had slyly coached the human priests at Mecone into decieving Zeus.

He had been gallingly duped into accepting a pile of fat and bare bones as his sacred portion, leaving humanity all of the guts, good flesh, and thick skins to work with, and a deal struck by a god is forever; or they are no god at all. The torturous price that Zeus levied on Prometheus for the changes he had so slyly sought, and insubordinantly wrought, is well known to this day and, like all things, did not last forever.

Alas, that cloud headed old fool Prometheus was no longer the problem at hand. A far more urgent matter now roused Zeus from his wine and sport. Fair and deadly Nyx had gone mad with an understandable hatred toward the loathsome humans, but also a dreadful, though notably insatiable, desire.

On seeing lowly humanity bearing flame into her holy darkness. On seeing their wanton and unquenchable passions and betrayals. On seeing their piercingly clever eyes in firelight cast ever upwards.

as though they,though mortal, would make theirs,the whole world, and also takedark, dread Nyxsome fine day

She had instead come to them.

In what seemed an unending and horrifically lustful frenzy Nyx had begun madly spawning monsters from the largest and most fearsome beasts upon Gaia and terrible, cannibalistic giants from those poor mortals caught alone by her;

those that had, quite foolishly if very bravely, wandered too far from the firelight

The offspring of this horrible spawning had become such a constant problem that Zeus lamented, in an exceptionally loud and open fury before the other gods, that he could not even get properly drunk anymore for concern that yet another terror would set foot upon Olympus while he was indisposed.

Such incidents were becoming ever more frequent. Zeus was most displeased, as ever more were the other gods. He set forth to address the matter, after his accustomed fashion. So it came to pass that Zeus, after so much wine as he dared, declared before an assembly of the other gods that he would resolve the matter by his might, and all in one day.

Up and into the realm of near infinite Uranus Zeus rose. Uranus, whose age and vastness were second only to eldest Chaos, barely noticed as the speck that was the king of the gods rose to harry his little sibling Nyx.

Nyx noticed. Long had she desired this encounter.

And so Zeus, in striving to return things to the way they had been, would be irrevocably changed.

Logged

You can't get out backward. You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting. If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation." - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

About Kronos (sic.) let's also not forget the thing about his children, for the sake of symmetry, by Zeus

Whatchu talkin' 'bout LuciferX?

I was enjoying this read last night and then felt like "contributing". Now it feels more like I may have been interrupting the narrative with the tangential concern of remembering what these gods personified. I think a round of Wikipedia should cure my ADD on the subject.

Logged

Hic Salta?________

Constant Eso-Opthamologist of Elicited Stopped-Clock Illusions, brings it back, or sinners just repent______

About Kronos (sic.) let's also not forget the thing about his children, for the sake of symmetry, by Zeus

Whatchu talkin' 'bout LuciferX?

I was enjoying this read last night and then felt like "contributing". Now it feels more like I may have been interrupting the narrative with the tangential concern of remembering what these gods personified. I think a round of Wikipedia should cure my ADD on the subject.

I'm glad you enjoyed it.

I don't feel interrupted at all man. Eventually I'm going to drop this thread because the name is taken. I was just wondering what you were talking about and in a hurry. Were you referring to Kronos' eating of his kids, Zeus' siblings? I lightly cover some of that. You can say or contribute as you please man.

I seem to remember it is written, "The classical Greeks were not influenced by the classical Greeks"

Logged

You can't get out backward. You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting. If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation." - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

I’ve given “The Real Story: Adonis” a careful read, and I have to admit, I didn’t see your major plot twist coming.

As far as constructive criticism goes, I noticed the following:

First off, “Hephaestius” is an odd spelling. If you Google it, references to a “World of Warcraft” character come up. The first time I Googled it only three items came up, and one of them was your post! The second time I tried it, a couple of hundred items came up, with almost all of them referencing “World of Warcraft”. But, try it for yourself, you may find you’re very unique on the first try.

Anyway, the most common Anglicization of the Greek is “Hephaestus”, although Bulfinch’s Mythology uses “Hephaestos”.

Second, you may want to reconsider the use of the word “Tartarus” for “the underworld”.

It’s really up to you, as some authors do use the word “Tartarus” as if it’s a synonym for “Hades”. However, if you’re inclined to be picky about it, “Tartarus” is the deepest, darkest, nastiest section of the Greek underworld. But, if that is your actual intent in this story, then so be it.

(As an aside, I’ve been thinking about putting something in one of my stories about some “special place in the afterlife” that is under the rule of Eris. Do you know if anyone has written something like that already?)

Third, you may want to recheck your story for spelling errors. I’m sure most of them are intentional, but I’ve run across a number of them that are probably not intentional.

Fourth, in Section 3, paragraph 8, you may want to consider giving your boar a pseudo-Greek name, and perhaps even a lineage. The “English to Greek” translation feature of Google can help you with that, if you’re interested.

Fifth, after being made immortal, Adonis became a “fertility god”. So … there’s a little problem here. It’s entirely up to you, but you may want to consider adding another twist to your story where something, or someone, or some group, helps him to fulfill his godly duties after being neutered.

Also, I usually have a detailed understanding of most things literary, but I didn't know the official meaning of "(sic)" until looking it up shortly before making this post.I knew it wasn't correct, but I always liked to think of it as an aside, an exclamation to the audience that the previous words were "Fuckin radical, siccc as fukkkk."

After finding the actual definition, I like your use of it better.

On to the next story.

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Listen carefully. I don't have much time, and I only have 462 characters left. I'm a scientist from Area 52 (Area 51 was used to draw attention from Area 52, where the aliens were ACTUALLY stored) who was working on neural interfacing with networked devices. In an experiment gone wrong, I accidentally uploaded my mind to the internet. In the 2 seconds I had before my mind scrambled itself with the world's network traffic, I was able to store this snippet in this random internet signature. If you're reading this, let the world know tha

Glad you liked it! I've been stalled out on finishing the Genesis of Eris for a couple years. I got uncomfortable with the details as they came to me and unsure of how to express certain elements. I'll see if I can just dam the torpedos and finish 4 and work out the rough draft for 5.

Logged

You can't get out backward. You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting. If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation." - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

I’ve given “The Real Story: Adonis” a careful read, and I have to admit, I didn’t see your major plot twist coming.

As far as constructive criticism goes, I noticed the following:

First off, “Hephaestius” is an odd spelling. If you Google it, references to a “World of Warcraft” character come up. The first time I Googled it only three items came up, and one of them was your post! The second time I tried it, a couple of hundred items came up, with almost all of them referencing “World of Warcraft”. But, try it for yourself, you may find you’re very unique on the first try.

Anyway, the most common Anglicization of the Greek is “Hephaestus”, although Bulfinch’s Mythology uses “Hephaestos”.

Second, you may want to reconsider the use of the word “Tartarus” for “the underworld”.

It’s really up to you, as some authors do use the word “Tartarus” as if it’s a synonym for “Hades”. However, if you’re inclined to be picky about it, “Tartarus” is the deepest, darkest, nastiest section of the Greek underworld. But, if that is your actual intent in this story, then so be it.

(As an aside, I’ve been thinking about putting something in one of my stories about some “special place in the afterlife” that is under the rule of Eris. Do you know if anyone has written something like that already?)

Third, you may want to recheck your story for spelling errors. I’m sure most of them are intentional, but I’ve run across a number of them that are probably not intentional.

Fourth, in Section 3, paragraph 8, you may want to consider giving your boar a pseudo-Greek name, and perhaps even a lineage. The “English to Greek” translation feature of Google can help you with that, if you’re interested.

Fifth, after being made immortal, Adonis became a “fertility god”. So … there’s a little problem here. It’s entirely up to you, but you may want to consider adding another twist to your story where something, or someone, or some group, helps him to fulfill his godly duties after being neutered.

So, did this help? Or, did it make it worse?

I’ll take a look at your second story in the next couple of days.

Thank you very much for the feedback! You spotted the Tartarus bit and I didn’t. I do mention it properly in other works and am aware of the distinction. I'll sum it up to writing in the character of the narrator. I did this writing while I was down with a nasty chest infection and it was mostly written to be like a messy barroom tale being told by an ex-angel character of mine, in an alt-"earth", whom the story does nothing to explain. That's something I'll fix as I go on here at PD, but I'll probably open a new thread when I do. The spelling of "Haphaestius" was my concession to the character's insistence under the influence of a godawful lot of cold medicine, thus all the "sic"ness..

I cannot take credit for the idea of the nature of Adonis' fatal wound. I don't recall exactly where, but I know I read a version of the story from Greek translation that had both the spear throwing and his injury. Many later tales mutate the story into something less graphic, but it seems the Greeks really did love them some violent slapstick. I recall reading it a long time before I wrote this, but when exactly is fuzzy. I'll have to go digging.

To answer your aside, no. I've never heard of Eris having much domain in the afterlife. Strife isn't usually a thing for the dead. I could see her visiting notables in various afterworlds and refusing to "stay in her own yard" in a mythological sense.In my own stories she has had "a thing" with Lucifer for.. oh... ages now really, and so has frequent business in "Hell", a subsection of the "3rd heaven" and NOT at all hades, which is a sub-realm of the "earth". Trouble is old "Louie" kinda lost it after the whole Jesus incident and hasn't been paying Eris much attention since. But that's another tale best told after I get other things out first.

Logged

You can't get out backward. You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting. If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation." - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

Also, I usually have a detailed understanding of most things literary, but I didn't know the official meaning of "(sic)" until looking it up shortly before making this post.I knew it wasn't correct, but I always liked to think of it as an aside, an exclamation to the audience that the previous words were "Fuckin radical, siccc as fukkkk."

After finding the actual definition, I like your use of it better.

On to the next story.

That Guthix character is pretty neat! I'm reminded of Fallout 2, I think, where if you set your IQ absurdly low at char gen there was a village idiot who was suddenly quite pleasant and adroit of word, and stuff.

See the portrait of Adonis is meant to play on the common supposition that an inbred person will be unintelligent, and even the narrator Dustrael makes a point to express his doubts about what Adonis COULD have been. The mythology says he was born from the myrrh tree that used to be his poor mother fully formed. I'm playing it like an unforseen side effect of the goddess' magic that made his mom into the tree. He missed a lot..

Logged

You can't get out backward. You have to go forward to go back.. better press on! - Willie Wonka, PBUH

Life can be seen as a game with no reset button, no extra lives, and if the power goes out there is no restarting. If that's all you see life as you are not long for this world, and never will get it.

"Ayn Rand never swung a hammer in her life and had serious dominance issues" - The Fountainhead

"World domination is such an ugly phrase. I prefer to call it world optimisation." - Harry Potter and the Methods of Rationality

To be honest, even after reading it several times, my mind completely skipped over the (sic again..) after the first Hephaestius'. It wasn’t until I read Fernando Poo’s post that I suspected I just might have missed something. So, as they say in the military, “As you were.”

As far as Adonis’ fatal wound goes, I’ve read two versions of the myth, and the boar wounds Adonis in the groin in both of them. The only significant difference I noticed between the two versions is that in the Ovid version, Zeus appoints the muse Calliope to pass judgement over how Adonis splits his time between Persephone and Aphrodite. And, in the Ovid version Aphrodite is pissed about the judgement and commits a revenge murder on one of Calliope’s children. In the other version Zeus makes the judgement himself.

I'm going to just keep posting some of my alternative stories to this thread for now until I figure out what else to do with them. This next set of three are completed versions of some stuff I had posted in rough form a while back. It's 5 parts total, and I'm hoping that posting the first three will help motivate me to complete the telling. The story is complete in my head, but telling it has been a strangely difficult thing to do. I'm probably just being too fussy and so have made it my next thing to scratch offa muh list.

The following is entitled "On The Secret Genesis of Eris", OTSGE for short. I'll put the first 3 in their own posts below.

Please continue working towards the completion of your story. I’m really looking forward to reading the last two parts. I have no idea what you have in mind for your ending, but it looks like it’s going to be really good, based upon what you’ve written so far. Bravo!